


Snow Won't Stick

by Rahmi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Cults, Gen, Kidnapping, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-09
Updated: 2010-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahmi/pseuds/Rahmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes them less than twenty years to get out of hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Won't Stick

**Author's Note:**

> For the Slaves square of H/C bingo. This was written pre-episode 6x07, so it's been jossed already. Title from the song Weeping Willow - The Hush Sound.

It takes them less than twenty years to get out of hell. The entire time is spent on a rack while Michael goes to work, screaming obscenities, but Lucifer is a frigid presence in the back of Sam's mind and Sam. Sam was meant to rule here.  
  
The cracks in the cage won't allow an angel out, but Sam's human and demon with an angel riding shotgun, and it was never, ever meant to hold that.  
  
They leave Michael down in the Pit with the pathetic remains of Adam.

* * *

  
The first thing Sam does when he's out is head straight for Dean.  
  
He doesn't make it.  
  
They're weak, Lucifer a tired wisp of freezing thought curled around Sam, and they don't sense what's coming at them, what _has them_ until it's too late.  
  
"Saw the signs all over the damn place, boy," the man says. He prods at Sam's stomach with a boot. "You'll do."  
  
He stinks of the angels and Lucifer's howling and Sam's crying, great, gulping sobs, because the future is spooling out in his mind, body still saturated with demon blood, and it is horrible.

* * *

  
_This is what we'll do_ , Lucifer murmurs.  
  
Sam gasps out a laugh. "Hallucinate?" he mutters. It's been forever since he's been allowed to sleep, longer since he's had food, and the water is delivered by a dark haired woman who says that everything will be so much _better_ when he understands what his place is.  
  
He'll be family, she whispers, and he'll be a hunter, an agent for good in the world. Isn't that so much better than anything he has now?  
  
Sam's family is sleeping halfway across the country in the arms of a woman he might one day love. The woman clucks her tongue when he says that, though, and then he has no water at all.  
  
The Devil's Trap itches between his shoulder blades. He doesn't know what's in the room that's containing Lucifer, but the angel is as helpless as he is and twice as pissed about it. They've traded one cage for another.  
  
 _Pay attention, Sammy,_ Lucifer says. He might be the only person in the whole damn world who's still willing to call him that.  
  
Except maybe Dean. But Dean's not here. Dean can't be here, please don't let Dean be here...!  
  
 _Sam!_  
  
"Listening."  
  
 _They don't know what they have_ , Lucifer says. He turns over restlessly in Sam's mind, a wave of light that flickers and frosts as it moves. _They know who you are, but nobody alive knows what we are any more. We can use this._  
  
There's a nudge and Sam blinks his eyes wide to see the vision this path can lead to. It's dark and cold, but eventually...  
  
"Might," he says, agreeing.  
  
Dean's on the other side of that long path. There are a million ways it can verge _after_ they meet, but all of them are better than what he's been seeing here. Lucifer is fascinated with Dean; he doesn't understand why Dean came, why he'll always come even when Dean hasn't liked him in years. He doesn't know _why_ Dean will come now that he has a family, but they both know he will.  
  
 _This will hurt_ , Lucifer warns and laughs with him when he asks, "When hasn't it?"  
  
Lucifer freezes off parts of Sam, parts that they don't want touched. Feelings for Dean go under a layer of ice so thick Sam's mindscape feels like the Antarctic. It's hard to remember why he wants it that way, but Lucifer sooths him back down when he tries to crack it open, promises that it's for the best and Lucifer has never, ever lied to him.  
  
Next are the demonic powers, shuffled and broken apart and frost nipped until they're useless, until _he's_ useless. They'll rot if Lucifer keeps too much power on them for too long. It needs to be done, Sam says when Lucifer asks.  
  
If I had to perish twice, Sam thinks. He doesn't want to be _useful._  
  
Sam reaches out when Lucifer is done to wrest all control away from him. Lucifer goes to sleep with a hiss and a smile, _We're more alike than they'll ever know, Sammy. We can do this._  
  
He misses the angel immediately, can't stand the way his skull is suddenly too hot and too empty. They've kept each other company for twenty years; Sam knows who he is and what he is, knows that he's now half of something bigger and colder and sadder than he is, but that doesn't mean anyone else does.  
  
Lucifer seals himself away with one last layer of ice; he takes the memories of hell with him and Sam is suddenly left on the floor of this small, foul room, with no idea of what just happened.  
  
He shuts off the parts of himself that matter and then he lets himself break.

* * *

  
"You're family," Gwen says. She's sipping her dinner with grin, teeth closed over the rim of her mug so that her fangs flash.  
  
Sam tilts his head at her and tries to track down why that makes something inside him ache. "What do you mean?" he asks.  
  
Johnny licks chicken grease off his fingertips and says, "Honorary Campbell now, no matter what or who you were beforehand. It's great, right?" His eyes flicker pale for an instant, mouth stretching too wide, before he says, "Man, chicken just never hits the spot, you know?"  
  
"You need the other white meat," Mark says. He sounds longing, but that's probably because they haven't fed him in a couple of weeks. No fresh corpses, Sam guesses. He doesn't like seeing his cousin suffer; how hard can it be to find a grave to dig up, seriously? He used to do it all the time.  
  
"Long pig, maybe." It's out of Sam's mouth before he can figure out why he's said it; this is his family. What does it matter? Still, something's niggling. "How are we family again?"  
  
Gwen laughs. "We hunt the monsters, Sam," she says, "And that makes us Campbells."  
  
"I was a Campbell already," Sam says.  
  
There's a rattle on the door. Sam slides a look over at the guard's gun, but the safety's still on. One of the guards had killed Harmony last week. She hadn't wanted to be family. "Shut up in there," the guard snarls. "Fuckin' monsters."  
  
"It's the truth," Sam says placidly. "My mom was a Campbell."  
  
"Ain't no way her blood's still in your veins."  
  
Something cold warns him to shut up, shut up _now_ Sammy. Sam tries to track it down to its origins, but it's already gone.  
  
Sam shrugs.

* * *

  
They're careful about letting him out at first. Sam doesn't know why; they're family, all of them, and he needs to be with them.  
  
He doesn't understand the conflicting impulses that keep him away from Dean but they come in on a wave of ice and he's learned to trust that feeling. He stays away from that area of the country, works his way along the Gulf Coast with Christian and tries not to wonder why his cousin holds a gun on him while he holds a gun on the monster.  
  
"Fuckin' hate this part of it," Christian says one morning.  
  
Sam pauses in the midst of a chin-up. "What?" he asks.  
  
"Keep going," Christian barks. "You've got thirty more and fifteen minutes before you need to eat."  
  
Sam shrugs. Routines. They're important, for some reason. He has to follow them.

* * *

  
Dean doesn't come, but that's alright. Sam stays away until he can't, until there's a shiver down his spine and he knows that if he doesn't head towards his brother _now_ , he's going to lose him.  
  
(Lucifer stirs; the ice crackles. Sam doesn't understand what any of this means, but his head hurts and he wants his brother. He wants his brother and the ice is cracking and something frigid and welcome is starting to seep back in.)  
  
He has the family now, though, so he's not sure why that matters. It just does.  
  
He goes.


End file.
